A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN: Fastpitch leaguein second season

Once you've established one of the state's dominant youth fastpitch programs, what do you do for an encore?

Well, if you're Dick Thompson, you form the only fastpitch softball league for adult women in the West Sound area. That's just what he did.

The result of that industry, A League of Their Own, began its second year of play at Lions Field on Monday night.

"This gives women that have graduated from high school an option to play fastpitch, which most of them prefer over slowpitch," Thompson said.

Or, as Rachel Lamkin, a 25-year-old massage therapist in Silverdale, explained - the difference between fastpitch and slowpitch is the difference between exciting and boring.

She'd been looking for a team to join since she moved to the area with her husband.

"I just called the parks department," said Lamkin, a right fielder with the Nighthawks. "I just wanted to play fastpitch. I don't like to play slowpitch."

Lamkin soon learned that, for fastpitch players, the sophomore league is the only game in town.

Thompson founded the Diamond Dusters, a select team that grew into an elite summer league fastpitch program. As players cycled through the Dusters program and graduated from high school and college ball, there was nothing left for them, nowhere left to play.

"Some of the girls asked me if I would start a women's fastpitch team," Thompson said. "Well, I could get a team going, but it wouldn't do any good because there's no one to play. So we started a league."

Last year, there were six teams in the league. This year, Thompson handed the project off to other organizers and a resulting snafu endangered the league's existence. Thompson stepped in again, calling almost every member of the league's five teams to ensure the league's survival.

Thompson has especially high hopes for this year. The Women's B Fastpitch Softball National Tournament will be held in Spokane Aug. 12 to 15, and Thompson would like to see one or more A League of Their Own teams play in that tournament. The ALOTO playoffs will be August 2 and 3.

That's down the road. Right now, league players like Sheilagh Flanagan, 31, the player/coach of the Port Orchard-based Nighthawks, get to feed their fastpitch jones without catching a ferry.

"This is great," Flanagan said. "Those of us who played college ball just don't want to play slowpitch."

Frenchy Nix, a 1997 South Kitsap High graduate now playing at Creighton University, reaps two major benefits from playing in the league.

First, she gets some turns at the plate, with the same kind of pitching she saw when she took a state title and finished runner-up with the Wolves. She said the nearest opportunity to play fastpitch is over in the Seattle area, but those teams are generally affiliated with college programs. The rosters are often pre-set and difficult for her to break into coming back from a Midwestern school.

Plus, she's just having a good time.

Other players are getting to return to the game that they fell in love with in the first place.

Paula Grande, 27, is the head coach at North Mason High. But in ALOTO ball, she's a player again, roving center field for The Flash, a squad made up of North Mason alumni.

"This is fun and exciting for me because I get to see more of the alumni -people that I'd see only at graduation," she said.

Grande also said that she more than keeps up with her teammates, who are almost all in their early 20s.

"I think I can outrun any of them," Grande said.

Upon hearing that, Stephanie Johnson, who will be a junior at North Mason next season but is playing in ALOTO while rehabbing a sore elbow, said.

"Oh, Jeez! She thinks she can."

But, during an 8-2 loss to the Nighthawks, Grande proved she can still play the game. She dove flat-out to snag a fly ball in center, then threw to first to catch Rachel Brassel and complete the double play.

Brassel, who pitched the Nighthawks to the win, is a Bainbridge graduate living in Bellingham. She came down to West Sound to play, rather than get involved in a more northern league, for one simple reason.

"I'd rather play down here, where I know people," she said.

That's what it's all about.

* A League of Their Own still welcomes area players or teams that would like to play fastpitch softball in a West Sound league. For more information, call Dick Thompson at (360) 479-4049.

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